


Five times the Master rescued the Doctor, and one time they didn't

by starknight



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fifth Doctor Faints, Let's Make Fifth Doctor Faints an Official Tag (thanks be to wranglers), Multi-Era, Other, POV The Master (Doctor Who), Rescue Missions, Swordfighting, The Doctor (Doctor Who) is an Idiot, The Master (Dhawan) as MI6 Agent O (Doctor Who: Spyfall), The Master (Doctor Who) centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28881933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight
Summary: The Master was, as a rule, fond of attention. And the Doctor’s attention was the very best.In which the Master pretends they could ever choose not to save the Doctor's life, five times over.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/MI6 Agent O (Doctor Who: Spyfall), Fifth Doctor/The Master (Ainley), Jo Grant & The Master (Delgado), Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Third Doctor/The Master (Delgado), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan), Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 40
Kudos: 103
Collections: Fiftieth Masterversary Big Bang





	1. 3 + Delgado

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in the works for a while (read: 7 months!?), and I'm very excited to share! Each chapter is from a different regeneration "combo", so if you don't like one, consider sticking around for the next ;) I'll be posting a new chapter every couple of days. Huge thanks to victoriantrashjohn for their lovely art, which will be linked here later today, and to the fiftieth masterversary mod team for all their hard work in making this big bang happen. I hope you enjoy, folks!

The Master was not, as a rule, fond of Earth. Simply put, there were too many humans crawling about on it. And yet it was a planet the Doctor visited more than he did Gallifrey, and he spent more time with his little human chums than he did with Time Lords. The Master did not understand it.

So it was with a pinched nose and an apologetic sigh for his TARDIS that he landed, once again, in the 1970s UNIT headquarters. He did have a good reason for visiting, in fairness. A very good reason. The only reason he ever really had for anything.

He poked his head out of his TARDIS, which had assumed the form of an unobtrusive ventilation pipe in the storage cupboard he knew no-one ever checked on. There were voices outside, so the Master used his expert scientific skills to listen in (he put a handy tin cup to the door).

“No, Miss Grant, I don’t have any idea either.” It was the Brigadier.

“Well, you shouldn’t have sent him off on his own!” And the ever-persistent Jo Grant.

“It was the Doctor who didn’t want you going with him.”

“And it was you who listened to him. Oh, Brigadier, he’s in trouble, I’m sure of it. Isn’t there any way we can help?”

“Not unless you have some way to get to - to - oh, wherever it is.”

“Orphan something, I think.”

An  _ orphan _ planet? What was the Doctor doing on an orphan planet?

“Yes, that was it. Don’t worry, Miss Grant, I’m sure he’ll be back soon, with a plethora of fanciful tales for you to listen to.”

There was the quiet but clear sound of Miss Grant sighing.

“It’s just that we don’t know anything about those Aldonian people, not really. What if they’re terribly dangerous?”

“The Doctor has seen more dangerous things than you or I could - did you hear that?”

The tin cup hit the floor with a loud clatter, but the Master barely heard it. He wrenched the storage door open and seized the Brigadier by his badge-ladened lapels.

“Aldonians? Is that what you said??” he demanded.

“You!” the Brigadier cried, struggling ineffectively in his grip. “What are you doing here?”

“Where is the Doctor?”

“I’ll never tell you,” said the Brigadier, clenching his jaw. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jo, looking thoughtful and not at all fazed by the Master’s sudden appearance. “You have a TARDIS, don’t you, Master?”

The Master let go of the Brigadier - who immediately got out a gun and pointed it at his head - and turned to Jo.

“Where has he gone?” he asked again through his teeth.

“It was - oh, I have it written down here somewhere, hang on…” She rummaged about in her pockets.

“Miss Grant!” the Brigadier barked.

“What? Oh, here it is! Orphan forty-four. Home of the Aldonians, that’s what the Doctor said.”

The Master grabbed the piece of paper from her and looked at it. As sure as anything, there was the Doctor’s looping scrawl.  _ Orphan 44. _

The words brought back three definitive memories: dust in his eyes; the certainty that he’d made a complete hash of things; and the cool feel of an execution block against his cheek.

He’d been lucky to get off the planet without having to regenerate a second time.

“What is it?” Jo asked.

“You idiot,” said the Master, slapping the gun out of the Brigadier’s hand. “You complete and utter fool.”

The Brigadier opened and closed his mouth silently.

_ “Master.” _

The Master felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head slightly.

“What is it, Miss Grant?”

“What’s wrong with orphan forty-four? Is the Doctor in danger?”

The Master locked eyes with the Brigadier. It was enormously tempting to hypnotise him and make him do something embarrassing, but he suspected this particular human might display resistance, and anyway, he wanted to find the Doctor as quickly as possible.

“You, Brigadier, have sent the Doctor into a grave and certain peril.”

“Oh,” said the Brigadier faintly. The Master, feeling he had had enough of an impact, turned around with the intention of going back to his TARDIS. 

Except Jo Grant stood in the way.

“Miss Grant,” said the Master. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Take me to orphan forty-four,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’m not leaving the Doctor alone when he’s in trouble.”

“A most admirable sentiment. And have you considered how exactly you might help him, once there? What could you possibly do that the Doctor could not do for himself?”

It was intended to be a cutting blow, but Jo only drew up her shoulders, a steely glint in her eye.

“Take me to orphan forty-four.  _ Now.” _

He could have gotten past her if he wanted, but her stance and resolute expression made it clear that she would do everything in her power to inconvenience him on the way.

“If you insist,” he said mildly. 

She smiled and opened the cupboard door for him. “After you, then.”

The Master was not, as a rule, fond of humans. In his opinion they were nosy little buggers with an exaggeratedly heightened sense of self-worth. And while Jo Grant couldn’t be said to be arrogant, what she could be said to be was nosy.

“What’s through here, then?” she asked, opening the door to the rest of his TARDIS without waiting for an answer. “The Doctor never lets me explore his properly, you know… Are all TARDISes built the same?”

The Master left the console, took the door handle from her and closed it.

“It’s not for you to explore,” he said. “And I would appreciate it greatly if you could stay put for the duration of our journey.”

That bought him two minutes of time working at the console before Jo, looking bored, reached out a hand to touch a random switch. The Master slapped her hand away.

“Miss Grant,” he said through clenched teeth, “If you want us to arrive at our destination in one piece, I strongly suggest you stay.  _ Put.” _

“Oh, alright,” she sighed. “Tell me about orphan forty-four, then. What made you turn white as a sheet back there?”

“A sheet? You exaggerate.”

“You were beastly pale, anyhow.”

“Yes, well - I - be that as it may, orphan forty-four is a highly dangerous place. The Aldonians colonized it after it was classified as an orphan planet, which was a terrible idea. Orphan planets aren’t habitable as a rule. This one’s atmosphere is almost back to normal, but it’s still just acidic enough that a life form like you would die in… ooh, you’d last two hours, a good pair of lungs like yours.”

Jo looked down at her chest uncertainly. “A couple of hours?”

“Are you still convinced this idea of yours is rational?”

“Yes,” she said defiantly.

“Then you ought to know about the Aldonian people. They’re the most aggressive colonisers I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across, which is why they snapped up this orphan planet before they really should have. They don’t allow other races to co-exist on the planets they claim. We’ll both be illegal aliens.”

Jo frowned.

“I didn’t realize you were coming with me.”

The Master scoffed. “Did you think I’d just drop you off and leave you to your certain demise?”

“Well… yes. That’s your style, isn’t it?”

“You’re correct, of course, I will. But not before I find the Doctor.”

“Oh,” said Jo, and smiled. “I see.”

The Master didn’t like her tone one bit, and the safest way to make sure he didn’t have to hear any more of it was not to reply.

Unfortunately for him, as well as being nosy, Jo was chatty.

“You quite like him, don’t you? The Doctor, I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the Master, busying himself at the console. “I’ve been trying to kill him for the last year.”

“Not really, you haven’t. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to do something really horrible to him and you never do.”

The Master didn’t say anything.

“Do you know what he said to me, about you, the first time you came to Earth? He said the cosmos would be a duller place without you in it.”

“Did he really?” the Master asked eagerly, looking up at Jo.

“There, see, you  _ do  _ like him,” she said triumphantly.

The TARDIS landed then, which was a good thing, because the Master couldn’t think of a response that might convince her otherwise. He strode to the TARDIS doors and flung them open, stepping outside onto the oil-slick rocks. 

They were parked on the top of a high cliff that overlooked a city, enclosed in the same sort of glass dome as the Citadel on Gallifrey. Personally, the Master thought the Citadel suited it much better. This glass dome was so filthy it was almost impossible to see through, apart from the vague grey hulking outlines of buildings.

“Orphan forty-four,” he announced, holding his hands in the air. “The place of, as you said, your certain demise.”

“Alright, alright,” said Jo, pushing past him. “That’s enough about demises. Where do you suppose the Doctor might be?”

A sudden rumbling started to sound and the ground shook beneath their feet. The Master peered over the edge of the cliff to see a huddle of blue and white robes gathered about the wooden execution platform he remembered all too well. On the platform, if he squinted hard enough, he could see a fluffy shock of white hair.

“Doctor!” Jo yelled. The Master clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Do you want us to be seen?” he demanded. “We’ll get shot down if you carry on like that.”

“But what can we do?”

“Tell me, Miss Grant, how are you with climbing?”

The Doctor was, as a rule, fond of alien races. It was exceedingly rare that a species should disappoint him as completely as the Aldonians, within the space of thirty minutes, had done. His hands were cuffed behind his back, his knees grating on the rough wooden platform, and the back of his neck held firmly in someone else’s grip.

It was almost enough to make him wish he hadn’t followed through on the tip from the Brigadier. If the Aldonians had wanted to colonise Earth, they would have done it already. Their scouting party had left so quickly, the Doctor had to assume they simply hadn’t found Earth suitable for their purposes. And now he was here. For no reason. About to be executed for existing.

_ Sounds like a regular Thursday, _ Jo might say if she were here, and thank goodness that she wasn’t.

The Aldonians began to chant something in their low, grating voices. Their appearance was very similar to humanity’s with the exception of their eyes. They had eyes that reminded the Doctor of nebulae - cloudy, purple and blue, no whites or pupils or structure, blank and glassy. They were very beautiful. A shame they belonged to such cruel and cowardly people.

A disturbance ran through the crowd. The chanting faltered for a moment and then stopped. The Aldonians were looking at something behind and above the Doctor, and he tried to turn around to see what the source of interest was, but the hand still had him in a firm grip.

“Take aim!” a voice yelled. “Aaaand… fire!”

A group of far-off Aldonians wielding bows and arrows loosed them, resulting in several small explosions sounding behind the Doctor.

“Take aim!”

Out of his limited range of vision, the Doctor could see his executioner. Their brow was creased in worry.

“Do you think we should skip the ritual and just kill him?” someone asked quietly.

The Doctor had several objections to that plan, but no sooner had he started to voice them than his face was pressed roughly into the stone execution block beneath him. The only sound he managed to get out was a most undignified yelp.

“Master, I think you forgot to mention the explosives!” Jo yelled, swinging out of the way of another arrow.

“I didn’t forget them, I very deliberately chose not to mention them. There’s a difference.”

“They’re going to figure out they can blow up our ropes soon. Come on!” 

She began to abseil much faster than she ought to, speeding down the rope. The Master chanced a glance down and saw the Aldonian standing over the Doctor watching him. Then they pushed the Doctor’s head down on the stone block.

The Master threw all caution to the wind and copied Jo’s fast pace down the cliff face.

“It’s probably best. They’re speeding up, look…”

“But we need to do the ritual! It is written!”

“Now’s not the time for all the pomp and circumstance, Jeff, now’s the time to kill him before that nutter gets here. He was a right pain last time, remember?”

The Doctor tried to think of what nutter could possibly be coming to save him. A suspicion rose at the back of his head, but he squashed it. Only UNIT knew where he was.

“Yeah, shut up, Jeff,” someone mumbled.

“We’re not going to make it!” Jo yelled. “Look, there’s at least ten of them waiting for us down there!”

The Master hissed in frustration, and stopped his descent before he got too close to the swords waving about. The executioner was taking his blade out. There was no time to cut his way through the foot soldiers, no time to think, no time for the Time Lord who had always been his favourite.

“Do you actually have a plan?” Jo asked, desperation plain in her voice.

“Always,” said the Master. This was a lie. “Jump.”

The Doctor screwed up his face against the stone. It was rubbing horribly against his cheek. He was starting to think he might not get out of this one unscathed.

“Shit. Kill him! Kill him now!”

There was a horrible screech as the executioner lifted their blade from its sheath, and an intake of breath as they raised it above their head.

The Doctor braced himself. At the very least, it was going to be a regeneration story for the grandchildren. He held his breath.

But instead of the heavy thud of death, there was a strangled cry, and in the Doctor’s hazy vision he saw the executioner falling. Someone pulled him to his feet, and then a hand was on his shoulder, steadying and warm. He focussed on the face in front of him.

“Come here often?” asked the Master, the corners of his mouth twisting in a smile. 

“I try not to,” said the Doctor. “You’re late.” 

“On the contrary, I believe I’m right - down!” 

The Master forced the Doctor down to the platform as an explosive sailed over their heads. 

“I didn’t quite catch that, Master.” 

“Right on time,” the Master gritted out. “Speaking of, I think it’s time we made our exit.”

“Quite. Let’s - is that Jo?”

There was a figure still on one of the ropes, sporting a fluffy coat and blonde hair. She was making her way up the cliff face, dodging the explosive projectiles as she went.

“She was absolutely insistent on coming along,” said the Master. “But where is she going? I told her -”

“- to jump? To  _ jump? _ Human bodies can only manage about ten metres of fall before significant damage occurs, and even then only with appropriate training. They’re fragile. You have to be careful with them.”

“Oh. Oh, now I see.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you do. Tell me, had you thought of anything beyond making your grandiose swoop in to rescue me, or is this the extent of your contribution?” Another two explosives sailed over their heads.

“Well,” said the Master slowly. “You wouldn’t have me do all the work, would you?”

The Doctor huffed. “Would it kill you to have done a bit more?”

“My dearest Doctor, is this how you intend to express your gratitude?”

The Master pushed himself up onto his feet and extended a hand to the Doctor. The Doctor eyed it suspiciously, but, in the interest of not dallying in the range of explosive Aldonian arrows, took it and let the Master pull him up.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

“This way.” The Master pulled him toward the ropes at the base of the cliff face and they ran, ducking explosives as they went.

But there was a group of armed Aldonians waiting, surrounding the ropes. They advanced as the Doctor and the Master approached, spinning their two-sided blades around their heads.

“Get behind me,” the Master growled, and the Doctor found himself being shoved backwards as the Master levelled his sword at the Aldonians.

“Look,” said the Doctor, “I appreciate the gallantry, I really do.”

“Good.” The Master lunged for the first Aldonian, who parried and aimed a returning blow.

“But there’s just a slight problem.”

“I’m just a little busy, if it can wait,” the Master hissed.

“I’m afraid it can’t.” The Doctor surveyed the scene in front of him, out of the Master’s sight. “You see, there’s rather a lot of armed problems running right for us.”

“Ah,” said the Master. “Then it’s lucky I came prepared.”

The Doctor grinned and held up a hand. Sure enough, a moment later there was a sword handle pressed into it, and the Doctor gave the weapon a few experimental swooshes through the air. He felt the Master’s back press against his.

“Just like old times.”

“Did you miss this, Doctor?” the Master asked.

But then the Aldonians were properly upon them, and there was a lot more hacking with swords and a lot less time for banter. This was not, unfortunately, an opportunity for peaceful consultation with the Aldonians - that sort of approach was what had gotten the Doctor’s head on a chopping block. But it wasn’t in his style to kill, and he managed to incapacitate most of the Aldonians with some well-placed Venusian aikido after engaging their attention with his sword. 

He didn’t look around to see how the Master was dealing with them.

After a few minutes, however, it became apparent that neither of them were going to hold out forever, and that the Aldonians were not decreasing in number. Quite the opposite.

“They’ve called for reinforcements,” the Doctor gasped in a brief lull. “We need to make it to the ropes.”

“There’s too many of them. We can’t,” said the Master tightly.

He was right. The Doctor knew he was right.

“Better to go down swinging,” the Doctor said grimly, and heard a little huff of amusement from the Master. They braced for the next wave of Aldonians, now charging towards them from all angles.

The Doctor was used to facing certain death because of the Master, not with him. He rather thought he liked it better this way.

It would be a regeneration story for the grandchildren, after all.

Then a familiar wrenching, whooshing hum sounded.

Jo had not jumped when the Master told her to because she wasn’t a complete idiot. She hadn’t even continued down the ropes once he’d jumped, because again, she wasn’t an idiot. There were hundreds of Aldonians down there, and it would do no good for the Doctor if she were to go and get herself stabbed by them.

So what Jo had done instead was: hauled herself back up the cliff face, gone back to the Master’s TARDIS, and found a thick book labelled  _ MANUAL. _ She was disappointed but not surprised to learn that basic manipulation of the TARDIS engines was not nearly as hard as the Doctor had made it sound, and within 2 minutes she had calculated and punched in coordinates for the clearing beneath the cliff.

She let herself smile as she pulled down the engage lever. It was every bit as satisfying as she thought it’d be, and only paled in comparison to the look on the Doctor and the Master’s faces as the TARDIS materialized around them. 

“Hello, Doctor,” she smiled. “Are you alright?”

“I - uh - quite well, thank you, Jo,” the Doctor said, coming to stand by her. “But how did the TARDIS land?”

“It’s not so hard to figure out. You never told me there was a  _ manual.” _ She waved the book in his face.

The Doctor went red and looked at his feet, mumbling something.

“What was that?” the Master asked, folding his hands behind his back and circling the Doctor.

“I threw it out.”

“That was silly of you, wasn’t it,” said Jo. 

She looked at the Doctor, who was looking at the Master, and she looked at the Master, who was looking back with an expression that made Jo feel very much like a spare part.

“I’m going to explore the TARDIS,” she announced to the room, and marched herself through the door. 

And for once, no Time Lords tried to stop her.


	2. 5 + Ainley

The Doctor had discovered long ago that three companions were just too many to keep track of, on account of him only having two eyes. Ever since Nyssa and Tegan had joined them he’d had a headache, and not just on account of his terrible regeneration. It seemed that whenever the TARDIS doors opened, his friends would scatter to the wind, and it was as much of a mission to get them all back in the one place as it was to defeat whatever evil plot they were up against that time.

It was only because of Adric’s incessant nagging that the Doctor reluctantly agreed to take them to the markets of Blatar, and he made sure to give them the usual briefing before opening the TARDIS doors.

“Now, this is a very large market, and you will get lost if you wander off. Adric, are you listening? Adric?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Good. So, if you get lost, remember, there’s the golden spire in the middle of it all, and I will be there at sundown. Alright? At sundown. Have you got that?”

“Sundown,” said Tegan. “Got it. Can we go now, Doctor?”

“Yes, yes, but you’ll need some local currency to spend… Here you go.”

He handed out ten Blats each to Nyssa, Tegan and Adric, and opened the TARDIS doors. Out they went, and even though the Doctor called out for them to  _ stick together _ as they left, he could feel the headache worsening just watching them go. Much like many mother ducks before him, the Doctor worried terribly that someday he would have one less duckling than the day before.

He stepped outside the TARDIS, locking and double checking the doors. Blatar was notorious for scavengers and the like, and the Doctor did not want to have to find his TARDIS at the end of the day as well as his companions. 

The triple suns were burning down bright, so the Doctor donned his hat as he pushed his way through the busy market street. It was winding and cobbled, full of clashing smells and sounds, and although he’d been here a few times before as a previous self, he started to feel a little overwhelmed by it all. He found a quiet seat by a market stall selling anti-gravity salt lamps and breathed deeply, watching the luminescent pink crystals floating through the air. There was a strange scent underneath it all, he noticed now, a heavy musk of spices that he was sure hadn’t been there the last time he was on Blatar. 

He drew in a long sniff of it. It didn’t help with his dizziness, in fact, quite the opposite. He blinked heavily. Colours started dancing around his vision, and he rubbed at his eyes, screwing them up in an attempt to see properly, but the smell was overpowering now, and the sun was so hot, and someone bumped his shoulder on their way past, and it was just so easy… to let himself slide down… into familiar blackness…

The Master hated Blatar. Well, he hated crowds. Well, he hated people. He just hated the way a lot of people around him made him feel: namely, not special. It would be alright if they all parted to make way for him like some sort of sorcerer parting an ocean.

But they didn’t.

So he walked through the crowd, feeling like one of the lowly masses (except rather more sorry for himself) until, with a shock, he came across a familiar blue box.

“Doctor,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke a finger down the vein of the wood. “Where are you?”

“Watch it!” someone behind him said, and then a black claw dragged his hand away. “That’s mine, I reckon.”

The Master briefly weighed the costs and benefits of letting the Doctor’s ship be stolen. In the end, it was more out of a desire to get his evil for the day done that he scared away the claw-footed scavenger.

“Begone,” he said dramatically, looming at his full height. “Or you shall feel the wrath of the Master, most powerful and honoured of all the Time Lords.”

The fledgling scavenger squeaked in fear and hopped away. The Master went back to stroking the TARDIS, feeling the tiniest echo vibrate through the pads of his fingers. As much as the Doctor’s TARDIS claimed to hate the Master, he rather fancied it had a soft spot for him.

But he couldn’t stay and fondle the Doctor’s TARDIS forever, so he patted it farewell, and carried onwards. Usually he would jump at the chance to capture the Doctor, but he didn’t have any evil plans ready to launch at the moment, so it would have to be a wasted opportunity. If he happened across the Doctor, though, he would certainly be courteous and say hello. It would only be polite.

He was thinking of how it might happen, and what he would say, and what the Doctor would say when he tripped over someone’s leg on the side of the path. He didn’t fall, but he stumbled, and it was most undignified, so he whipped around to yell at the owner of the leg. The orange and white striped leg… 

“Doctor,” the Master breathed, forgetting the entire scenario he had planned out.

The Doctor, though, was unconscious. He seemed to do that a lot with this regeneration.

“Doctor,” said the Master again, and poked him with his foot. “Doctor!”

Suddenly a large, coarse net was thrown over the Doctor. The Master looked up to see the same little scavenger fledgling from before, with twenty or so others, huddled in the back of a wooden cart. They descended on the Doctor, wrapping him in the netting and bundling him up, presumably to take with them.

“Now, hold on - wait -  _ STOP!” _ the Master roared. He took out his TCE and pointed it at the nearest scavenger. “Put him down!”

The scavengers stopped and looked at each other uncertainly for a moment before continuing as if he wasn’t there. So the Master shrunk one of them, and then six more, just to make sure they got the message.

Once they were done screaming and flying away, he bent down to free the Doctor from the netting. He thought he might have woken up during the commotion, or when he accidentally rolled him over onto his face while disentangling him, but no. The Doctor slept right through everything.

The Master looked around. Where were those wretched companions of the Doctor’s? Shouldn’t they be looking after him? Did the Master really have to do everything himself? 

Resigned, he bent and scooped the Doctor into his arms. He would just take him back to his TARDIS, he told himself. Just to save himself the inconvenience of having to scare off more scavengers. Not because he enjoyed the feeling of the Doctor’s hair floppy against his chest, or the feeling of the Doctor’s weight in his arms (this regeneration was so very small and light). Of course not.

But why he bothered to pick up the Doctor’s ridiculous little hat from where it lay on the ground he couldn’t justify to himself.

He made it back to the Doctor’s TARDIS, and paused. Of course the wretched door would be locked the one time he needed it not to be. He awkwardly leaned the Doctor’s weight up against the TARDIS and rummaged in his pockets, finding, in no particular order: three spare sticks of celery, a piece of Venusian tin riddled with irregularly shaped holes, a tiny little book titled  _ Fun Family Activities, _ and finally, a small TARDIS key. He fit it in the lock, ignoring the TARDIS’ sound of muted alarm and red lighting at his entering.

“It’s only me,” he soothed it. “I’ve brought your precious pilot back.”

The TARDIS grumbled a little but seemed to settle, the light turning an ambient white-blue.

The Master carried the Doctor through to his bedroom, which luckily hadn’t changed positions since the last time, and set him down on the bed.

He should go now. He should really, really… go. But perhaps… a few finishing touches.

The Doctor woke up with a headache. He squinted at his familiar room on the TARDIS, and then tried to sit up, only to be hampered by the covers. Covers. Covers? He looked down at the blankets, coming to the realisation that someone must have tucked him in. He loosened them and sat up properly when a flash of yellow caught his eye.

It was a daffodil, standing in a little vase on his bedside table. There was a glass of water, too, and some recognisably Gallifreyan headache pills. And there, next to the flower, was a pair of black leather gloves that most decidedly did not belong to the Doctor, along with a badly dirtied cricket hat that most decidedly did.

He reached across to sniff the flower, which immediately tried to suffocate him, but seemed rather half-hearted in its attempt. This, the Doctor thought while peeling the plastic off his face, was not so much an attempt at murder as an attempt at leaving a note.


	3. 10 + Simm

The Doctor could barely see through the water collected in his eyes, could barely hear over the ringing in his ears. He could feel little bits of glass poking into his cheek. He could feel the Master’s presence, always, burning bright and hot and angry.

“Let me ascend into glory!” he cried, and it made the Doctor sick to the centre of his hearts. Was there nothing of his old friend left in there?

“You are diseased, be it a disease of our own making…” Rassilon looked smug. “No more.”

He held out his glove, which began to glow.

_ No. Not him. _

Fuelled by a moment of pure panic, the Doctor pushed himself up, levelled his gun at Rassilon and clicked off the safety.

“Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one.”

“But he’s the President,” the Master said triumphantly. “Kill him and Gallifrey could be yours!”

_ Why are you still like this? _ the Doctor wanted to scream.  _ What makes you think I could ever be like that?  _

And somehow he still felt like the Master wasn't taking this seriously. Maybe that’s what made him swivel, change his aim, and stare down the barrel of his gun into the Master’s eyes.

“He’s to blame, not me!” the Master blustered. It was somehow satisfying to see the fear in his eyes.

_ Still selfish, but not so cock-sure now, are you? _

“Oh. The link is inside my head. Kill me… The link gets broken, they go back.” 

_ Exactly. And I know I can kill you with a single bullet. Who knows what’d work on Rassilon? _

The Master shifted slightly. “You never would, you coward.”

_ Wouldn’t I? _

The room phased out of sight for a moment, everything becoming slow and twisted and dark. It had been an age since they linked this way, and it wasn’t natural anymore, it was deep water pulling at them both and trying to grasp the Master’s hand in a sea of confusion. 

It was cold until a slight warmth brushed against the Doctor’s mind, and then it was everywhere, a wildfire flashing through his head, threatening to engulf him, chew him up and spit him out as ash. He struggled with the effort not to drop to his knees and scream.

_ You wouldn’t, _ the Master said in his mind.  _ You won’t. _

_ I would,  _ the Doctor spat back.  _ And I will. _

“Go on then,” the Master said out loud. “Do it!”

_ You’re still so stupid, _ the Doctor said.  _ You don’t understand, do you? If I kill Rassilon, he’ll be sent back with all the others. But I’ll still have to deal with you. If I kill you, there’ll be no-one left to deal with. It’s an easy choice. The only choice. _

_ You want me dealt with, is that it? Everything wrapped up and finished, with a nice little bow on top? _

_ Yeah, that’s about right. _ The Doctor was tired of this, and he let it bleed through into the Master’s head.

_ What about what you said back on the Valiant? That you’d  _ keep _ me? Make me all better? Don’t you want to do that, Doctor? Don’t you want to at least give it a try? _

It’s a card the Doctor knew would be played. He’s prepared for it.

_ You didn’t regenerate. I  _ begged _ you to, and you didn’t. I cried for you, and you still didn’t. _

_ I came back, though, didn’t I? Always do. _

He’d come back, and he’d done this. He’d made the Doctor’s life into his own personal Hell, again. 

_ No second chances,  _ the Doctor told him.  _ Not now. _

His resolve settled, and he tightened his finger on the trigger. An eerie peace came over him, then.

_ Any last words, Master? _

_ Doctor, please. Please. No. Don’t. I don’t want to - you don’t want to - I can’t die. I only just got back. Please. What more do you want me to say? Please, please, please - _

_ I begged you to regenerate, and you didn’t. _

_ I’ll do anything. Please. _

It made it harder to feel certain when he could hear the Master begging in his ear, see the tears gathered in his eyes.

The Master stopped talking in his head and sent out a desperate surge of pure pleading. He shook his head, just the tiniest amount, and it sent cracks through all the peace the Doctor had been feeling before.

He couldn’t. The Master was right. He never would.

The Doctor spun back to Rassilon.

“Exactly. It’s not just him, it’s me, he’s the link! Kill him!” the Master yelled, and to the Doctor, he said,  _ I knew you wouldn’t. _ The huge aura of relief surrounding them both sullied the effect somewhat.

“The final act of your life is murder… But which one of us?” 

Rassilon stared at the Doctor with a knowing gaze. The Doctor hated it when people pretended to know him like that. People other than the Master, at least.

_ He doesn’t know you,  _ the Master sneered.  _ Not like I do. I know you like you know yourself. I know you’d never kill me better than you know it. _

Then the Time Lord behind him lowered her hands, and the Doctor saw her face. She hadn’t regenerated, even after all this time - well, of course she hadn’t, it was still the Time War for her.

She always did know better.

Her eyes kept moving to the side of his, as if she was looking at the Time Lord behind him. But she couldn’t mean - she couldn’t want him to -  _ oh. _

The Doctor spun back around to face the Master.

_ What are you doing? Doctor, I know you, and you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, you won’t, please don’t, is there anything I can say? Something I can do? Please, please, I don’t want to - _

“Get out of the way,” said the Doctor.

The Master’s voice went quiet in his head then, and in the whole room, the Doctor could only hear the Master’s breathing. One side of his mouth pulled up in a smile, and then he launched himself out of the way, and the Doctor fired right into the machine behind him.

The link was broken.

_ I suppose you think you’re very clever, _ the Master said, though there was a trace of giddiness in his thoughts that hadn’t been there before. 

_ I do, actually, _ said the Doctor. He turned to watch as light flickered around Rassilon and the other Time Lords, and they started to recede.  _ Good riddance. _

“The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon. Back into Hell,” the Doctor spat.

_ So angry, Doctor. Am I a bad influence? _

“You’ll die with me, Doctor," Rassilon growled, his gauntlet glowing with the threat.

“I know.”

_ Wait,  _ the Master said.  _ Wait. What's your plan here? _

_ No plan. It's time to die. Enjoy being the last of the Time Lords. _

_ Doctor,  _ the Master insisted,  _ you're not going to die. _

Rassilon held out his hand, and the Master’s mother put her hands back over her face.

_ “Get out of the way,”  _ the Master said, both in the Doctor's head and out loud.

_ Master, I - _

_ Now. _

The Doctor looked back at his childhood friend, his best nightmare, his favourite enemy, and for a moment he couldn't move. Then the order came again, wordless, a psychic push in the right direction, and the Doctor stumbled backwards.

The Master blasted Rassilon with the energy he’d used on the Doctor in the junkyard, blinding blue and bright. The Doctor could feel it in his head, feel the rip of life and regeneration draining away from the Master as he threw it all at Rassilon.

“You did this to me!" he screamed. "All of my life!"

_ Wait,  _ the Doctor said, not knowing if the Master could hear him over the cacophony of psychic and physical noise.  _ WAIT!  _

"You made me!" The Master wasn't slowing, and he wasn't stopping.

_ Master, you'll die. Master. MASTER! _

"One!"

_ You can stop now,  _ the Doctor begged, trying with his last scraps of energy to raise himself from the floor.  _ Just stop it. _

"Two!"

_ Please. _

"Three!"

_ Koschei, please. _

"Four!”

_ Goodbye, Doctor,  _ the Master whispered, and then he was gone. Vanished. Along with the Time Lords.

_ I'm alone again, _ thought the Doctor, and it echoed around the psychic link. 

_ Alone. Alone. Alone. _


	4. 12 + Missy

Missy wondered if she was still as arrogant as her past self, that young man who’d upgraded his scrappy hoodie for a fancy coat.

_ Don’t bother trying to regenerate, _ he’d said. What an absolute  _ prick. _ There wasn’t much in the universe that would stop her from trying, and her own laser screwdriver was no exception. She let herself catch her breath first, though, closing her eyes to the dim sky.

The Doctor had never had much control over his regeneration. It was one of the things Missy liked to tease him about. He had never been able to choose so much as his hair colour, where Missy could almost perfectly replicate a face if she really put her mind to it. 

(There was an idea to that, actually, that she’d had in the works for a while… A human called O that the Doctor had mentioned in passing.)

She hoped that he wouldn’t have to regenerate today, more for her sake than his. He’d get all sick and floppy, no doubt, and she’d look after him because it was  _ good _ and  _ decent. _ Worse, she’d have to pretend to hate it.

Her regeneration began with a hiss and a spark in the backs of her knees, like it always did, an aching sense of heat and life that pulsed its way through her, gathering in pretty sparkly dust at her fingertips. She breathed in time with it, let it run its course, didn’t try to fight it or push it away. It wasn’t so easy out here in the open, though. She needed to get back to her TARDIS.

_ I will stand with you, _ she told the Doctor mentally.  _ I will come back and stand with you. _

She reached out with her mind for a nearby kitling - dimension-hopping creatures of the universe that came in the form of skinny black cats - and within a minute of mental persuasion, she had been dropped in her TARDIS by the wee creature. It left as quickly as it had come. Kitlings, like cats, were antisocial bastards.

A nasty twinge seized the small of her back, and she winced, bracing herself on the console. Her TARDIS rumbled sympathetically.

“I’ll be alright,” she said. “Be a dear and put the kettle on.”

There wasn’t much Missy could do for the Doctor until her regeneration was over. Still, it was better to be near him than far away, so she materialised her TARDIS as near the Mondasian ship as she thought she could get away with without getting sucked into the time waves dragging everything towards the looming black hole. Her TARDIS groaned in discomfort, and Missy clucked sympathetically, rubbing a hand over the console.

“There, there. You can do it. I know it’s nasty, but you’re very brave.”

Her TARDIS groaned louder, the console shuddering beneath her touch.

“Now you’re just being dramatic - ah!” Missy yelped as a live wire of regeneration energy shot up her spine. “Well, we’ll get through it together. Just us girls. Eh?”

Her TARDIS gave one short wheeze and fell silent.

“Have you got a fix on the Mondasian ship’s system?”

Her TARDIS’ screen flickered to life, showing a black and white security feed of the Doctor’s phone box TARDIS, still parked on the level she’d left him on. As she watched, the Doctor, a little bloodied and worse for wear, staggered into view. He fumbled with the keys, jamming them into the lock, and as the door opened, a bright light shone from his hand.

_ Oh, my dear Doctor. You’re regenerating too. _

He fell in the door as soon as it opened, and it swung shut of its own accord. She was glad to see his TARDIS was taking care of him. Someone had to.

Her TARDIS wheezed a few more times, the time rotor juddering up and down, mimicking flight.

“We can go soon, dear,” she promised. “I just want to make sure he gets away alright.”

Another wave of pain hit her and she doubled over, leaning her elbows onto the console, propping up her head with her hands, staring at the screen. The Doctor’s TARDIS wasn’t taking off.

“This is live, isn’t it?” she asked.

Her TARDIS whined indignantly.

“I was only asking,” Missy muttered. “Why isn’t he taking off? Careless idiot. Look, can you try to get a reading of their time vortex signature?”

Her TARDIS whined again, but the screen divided into two parts, one containing the live feed and the other containing the readout from a basic vortex scan. It was a standard feature of every TARDIS ever to be able to check the functioning status of another TARDIS. The Doctor’s TARDIS, apart from being terribly out of date and stuck in that ridiculous blue box form, was perfectly able to dematerialise. It just wasn’t doing it.

“Stubborn, stupid, careless fool,” she told the screen. “Wait. What’s that?”

_ Tracking Status: UNIDENTIFIED TRACKER, _ the readout stated.  _ Please contact your nearest TARDIS-registered trader for more details. _

“Oh, yes, that’s very helpful. Can you try to identify it?”

Her TARDIS whirred for a few seconds.

_ Tracking Status: UNIDENTIFIED TRACKER. _

As she watched, the Doctor’s TARDIS finally dematerialised. 

“Follow him!” she cried, punching the time de-regulators and easing up just a little on her spatial capacitors. “Into the vortex!”

Her TARDIS obliged quickly, happy to be free of the black hole’s infinite pull, and they were cruising through the vortex in a few seconds. She wasn’t worried about the Doctor seeing her; as the protagonist of his own story, he rarely remembered to check over his shoulder unless prompted. Missy didn’t suffer from the same lack of foresight, however, and was quick to notice the rustbucket of a ship tailing the both of them. 

Well, that was a bit odd. Not many ships had the capability of vortex travel for extended periods of time, and less had the capability of actively steering their way through it. Missy focussed her sensors on it, enhancing the picture of it. It had the word  _ PILOT  _ faintly patterned beneath the layers of grime. Not that it mattered who they were. She’d take them out regardless.

“Prepare the blast laser vortex ranged missile torpedoes,” Missy said, and the TARDIS rumbled in response. The roman column of the TARDIS rotated sideways in the vortex, and out of the end peeked the biggest and most dramatic weapon Missy had had time to design to date: the blast laser vortex ranged missile torpedo. It was shaped like a dagger, barbs decorating the side of the metal, with the inscription  _ Die, Laugh, Love _ engraved in cursive on the side.

To tell the truth, Missy was quite excited to have the opportunity to use her blast laser vortex ranged missile torpedoes. And sure enough, this was it. If only her damned regeneration would -  _ ouch  _ \- leave her alone. She braced herself on the console, committing herself to one last fight in this body.

The rustbucket ship engaged an old GustBullet 2000 cannon. Missy grinned. This wasn’t going to be a fair fight, which meant she could afford to be dramatic. 

The cannon fired, and in the strange gravity of the vortex, the football-sized explosive shell it released made a lazy spiral towards the Doctor’s TARDIS. Missy locked her aim onto it and sent a blast laser vortex ranged missile torpedo as way of greeting. A pretty explosion resulted, all pink and orange and yellow. Missy was pleased to see that the explosive dyes she’d been experimenting with in her missiles had succeeded. The rustbucket kept firing, and Missy began to play a game. Each time, she’d let the cannons get closer and closer to the Doctor’s TARDIS before dispelling it with her own explosives. Just to get a little kick out of it.

She’d gotten her distance down to just a few metres from the back of the Doctor’s TARDIS - and really, wasn’t he just the most oblivious - when the TARDIS vworped alarmingly. Missy frowned, and patted the console soothingly. 

“What’s up?”

The TARDIS screen flickered out of focus and back in. The PILOT ship was still there, but the TARDIS beeped insistently. Missy’s eye was drawn to the artron energy meter, whose dial indicator was straining against the barrier of  _ extreme levels. _ Slowly, slowly, Missy refocussed her TARDIS screen on the large energy reading behind her, with the sickening feeling of looking over her shoulder.

A huge tangle of glowing energy showed on the screen, heading fast towards them. Missy swore.

“Reload,” she told the TARDIS. The TARDIS blooped sadly. “Reload!”

But the blast laser vortex ranged missiles had all been used.

“Just - get a normal blast missile out, can you? Oh no. I used all of those up on target practice, didn’t I?”

The TARDIS blooped. Missy swore again. And still the energy advanced. It swallowed the PILOT ship, leaving only the metal support skeleton of the ship in place, the rest of the hull turned into shiny dust that floated away into the vortex. 

The Doctor’s TARDIS could handle it, Missy told herself. He wasn’t her responsibility, was he? He could handle it. He’d look around. He’d get his shields up. He’d… oh, hell. 

“Reroute all power to external shields,” she told her TARDIS. The lights dimmed to emergency saving mode internally, so that Missy’s hands glowed red and blue in the light of the console buttons. “And change course to intercept.”

The TARDIS beeped to make sure she’d heard correctly, and Missy repeated herself. The TARDIS screeched in alarm.

“It’s going to be fine,” said Missy through gritted teeth. “We’re going to be  _ fine.  _ Fuck. Ow.”

A sudden spasm of pain shot through her, leaving her curled up on the TARDIS floor.

“Do it!” she yelled to her TARDIS. “Save the Doctor!”

The TARDIS lurched to the side as she obeyed Missy’s order, the gravity stabilizers powered down along with the other internal workings to boost shields. And something familiar began to claw its way up Missy’s throat. _Not now. Not now._ _Control it._

But the most Missy could do before her regeneration forced its way out was push herself to her knees in order to brace herself. Every atom within her was burning, DNA unwinding and tangling and fizzing and reforming. With what little of her mind was aware and conscious, she hoped that whatever mysterious energy was going to hit her could wait for a few -

_ BANG. _

All that made Missy Missy was knocked out of her in a rush, and the last thought she had was of a face to copy. A face called O.

Then someone was screaming, but they didn’t have ears to hear it with. Then they had ears, and a nose and a chin and also arms. They were trembling, and they were crashing, and they were burning, and it was dark.

Sometime later, the Master pushed himself to his feet. He wasn’t good, or kind, but he was determined to be cruel. With witness and reward, if he could manage it.


	5. 11 + O

The Doctor had an incurable weakness for humans. He had learnt this about himself long ago, in the form of two schoolteachers that had stumbled across his granddaughter. It was a fact that he had thought was irrepressibly burned into his brain, so intrinsically a part of him that he didn’t retain any capacity to be surprised by it.

And then a shy MI6 agent smiled at him, and the Doctor had to resist the urge to clutch at his bowtie. 

“So, Doctor, what do you think?” a voice said very faintly. The Doctor ignored it. “Doctor. Doctor. Doctor!”

It was Amy snapping his suspenders that finally jerked him back away from big brown eyes, into the present moment.

“You’re staring, Doctor,” she said in that tone she used for subjects she intended never to let him forget about.

“Am I? No. Never. I don’t stare. Staring is for people with an attention span.” 

The Doctor’s own (miniscule) attention span whacked him round the head with a memory of what they were doing there. A rogue digital consciousness, infused into the Ravens of the Tower of London. Slightly unfortunate, especially given this consciousness’ apparent predisposition to stealing expensive things. It had worked its way up from the senior agents’ Rolexes and pocketwatches to conducting advanced digital attacks on major international banks, and currently had an estimated net worth of four billion pounds. 

The Doctor’s eyes flicked up to the current world-threatening crisis. Amy, Rory, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and the cute boy whose name the Doctor had yet to ask for waited for his verdict. He rocked back on his heels, thought about it, and came up with a truly brilliant idea.

“This consciousness is extended when it attacks, which leaves it vulnerable. Now, if we could isolate an attack, triangulate the ping addresses to locate the source, and then track it like that -” the Doctor snapped his fingers, “- then we could brute force our way into its head! Shut it down with a manual override.”

But Kate was shaking her head. “None of the places attacked have anything close to the technology we’d need to execute a plan like that, and besides, we don’t know where it might target next.”

“It’s going for money,” the Doctor said. “We just need to get a big enough honey pot together. A billion pounds or so should be enough.” He looked at Kate expectantly.

“Um,” she said. “We’ve had some budget cuts, actually.”

The agent who the Doctor had no choice but to label, quite frankly, adorable, raised his hand tentatively. The Doctor felt a grin spread across his face, and nodded for him to go ahead.

“Have you heard of Kickstarter?”

Three hours later, MI6 had more money than it knew what to do with, and all in the name of fairtrade organic soap with three fun different flavours. (Amy had assured them that this was a sure bet for a quick fundraiser.) And the Doctor had finally learnt the name of the agent, who turned out to be capable of having good ideas and working under pressure as well as pretty. 

O.

Which is also what the Doctor had replied with upon learning O’s name, because it was a bit of a strange one.

“An inside joke,” said O, glancing down at his feet, and didn’t elaborate further.

The Kickstarter grew, and grew, and still no sign of the ravens. It was a waiting game. The Doctor had played waiting games in many of his various selves, and he could say without any doubt that this regeneration was the absolute worst at it. He made a card pyramid five times over, went down a Wikipedia rabbithole on the history of the Tower Ravens which turned out to be both ridiculous and fascinating, and finally ended up sitting sulkily in his chair, staring at his monitor. 

“They’ll be here soon, Doctor,” O said, looking over at him. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not  _ worrying,” _ the Doctor muttered. “I’m waiting, and I’m having a terrible time of it.”

O considered him. “Have you heard of steganography?”

The Doctor grinned. “Into code-breaking, are you?”

“Well, I’m not really supposed to say,” O lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “But if you can promise not to tell, I can show you a new technique I developed. Might help the time pass.”

So as well as knowing his name, the Doctor knew that O was smart. Really, really smart. The technique he developed could be used in any application, over any interface, no matter how insecure. 

“And it does this how?” the Doctor asked for the third time. “With a symmetric key thingy?”

“It’s sort of a symmetric key, except instead of just the two layers of protection, you extrapolate it out to the Nth degree: a lock within a lock within a lock within a lock, and so on.”

“How do you get into the first lock?”

“First principle of cybersecurity. Who do you trust?” O asked, grinning.

“Not many people,” the Doctor admitted.

“Would you trust me if I asked?”

The Doctor felt his face growing red, and he ducked to cover it with his fringe.

“Are you asking?”

“That depends on what you’d say.”

The Doctor had been betrayed by people he’d met in the same day just a few too many times to trust O, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Not yet,” he said.

And then the Attack of the Avaricious Ravens occurred.

“Oh my god, they’re in the mainframe,” Computer Programming Extra Number 3 yelled. 

The Doctor frowned at his screen. Too many people around him were typing too noisily. What were they even doing, firing bits of code at the hackers? He had to think. The ravens were working together, and it was too hard to keep track of them all.

“We can’t work fast enough,” he said aloud. “We have to speed up the defence software somehow, or else they’re going to get the money and flap off with it.”

“They’ve already got hold of the money,” O said, raking a hand through his hair. “They’re in the system for something else now.”

“What? What could they want from us if they’ve already got the money?”

O’s eyes met the Doctor’s, and in the same moment, they realised.

“Keep them out of the central control system!” O yelled, but it’s too late. 

Something crackled and gripped the Doctor by the fingertips, pinning him in his seat. He looked down to see a blue energy flowing out of the computer and all around him, enveloping him in a layer of heat that he was immobilised in. He gritted his teeth and tried not to yell with the pain of it, not wanting to distract the others from their work. O kept glancing at him, but his fingers didn’t stop typing, dancing across the keys with an agility that only came from practice under pressure.

“I’m going to get you out of there,” O told him, his voice low and intense, and the Doctor almost believed him. 

The pain got worse, sharply, and the Doctor let out a strangled noise.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly!” the Doctor said.

“I need a status report from each of the ravens!” O said. “Where are they all currently?”

Various programmers yelled words that the Doctor struggled to make out amidst the crescendo of electricity washing around his body. 

“Shut it down. Shut it all down. Now!”

Keyboards clacked in response, and finally the Doctor was released from his bonds. Immediately, he experienced the worst pins and needles of his life.

“Now we use the backup kernel on reserve power,” O said. “And deploy our multithreaded defense system. Extrapolate out to the Nth degree. A wall within a wall within a wall. Go!”

And just like that, the AI from another world was gone, and with it, a significant percentage of the world’s riches.

O came to bid them goodbye, standing just outside the TARDIS doors, hands in his pockets. And the Doctor remembered something.

“I trust you,” he said.

O took the Doctor’s hand, and scribbled something on his palm. A number. And a little smiley face. The Doctor smiled back at the face.

“Text me if you need anything,” O said, his eyes looking up through long dark eyelashes. 

“I’ll make sure to encrypt it properly. Wouldn’t want anyone spying on us,” the Doctor grinned.

“No. That’s my job.”

The last the Doctor saw of O was a hand raised in farewell, deep brown eyes fixed on his, and a smile that was just the tiniest bit familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's out of order! But this is following the master's timeline. More accurately, my made-up timeline for the master. And you just have to deal with it. :)


	6. 13 + Dhawan

Well, that had gone shit.

The Master hadn’t made quite so big or ambitious a plan in a while, and he was looking forwards to warming himself over the ashes of Gallifrey while being brought an ice cold cocktail by a cybermaster with a silly bowtie welded on. And now it was all shit. He hadn’t managed to save anything except himself from the death particle, leaving all of his new hybrids behind to perish in what was essentially a nuclear blast. 

Shit.

This was supposed to be the end, one way or another. He wanted to win or lose. He didn’t want this to go on, and on, and on. He really should have just stayed behind to die, but something about the Doctor cheating on their deal (and with a human, no less!) stung too much for him to go without getting a little revenge first.

But not right now. Right now, it was time to sulk.

The Master was right in the middle of an extended sulk in one of the darker corners of his TARDIS when something interrupted him. Quite rudely, in fact. It was an alarm he’d set for very special occasions. 

_ It’s not easy having yourself a good time… _

A classic Earth ballad. 2000s. Nice and spiteful. Usually perfect for improving his mood, but not when it went off as an alarm, the alarm which meant…

“Doctor,” he said before he could help himself. 

_ Fuck and kiss you both at the same time… _

“Can I not have twenty-four hours to get over the last time?” he whined to his TARDIS. She made a short rumble, like the aural equivalent of a shrug. 

The Master groaned, and got up to see what the fuss was about.

_ I’m just a loner baby, and now you’ve gotten in my way…  _

It was the Doctor. Of course. 

But what was unusual in this case is that it was actually, really, the Doctor. She’d sent him a distress call directly. Usually he had to scan around himself for ages until he picked up anything of the kind, and then it was aimed at people called “River Song” or “The Brigadier” or “Captain Jack”. (The Master liked to pretend he didn’t know who any of them were.) But this was a distress call to him, for him. 

She must be desperate. 

_ No wonder why, my heart feels dead inside, it’s cold and hard and petrified…  _

Hooking up the signal to his triangulator array, he could see why. She was stuck in one of the highest security systems he’d ever seen, a Judoon prison. The one they managed to keep weeping angels contained in. It seemed that even the Doctor couldn’t get out of that one without a little help from her enemies.

_ Lock the doors and close your blinds…  _

And so the Master set to work. 

_ We’re going for a ride. _

It was tricky, because he had to keep out of range of all their detectors. If the Doctor was worth this, then he shuddered to think at what they’d do to him. Probably freeze him into a big block of ice and be done with it. He monitored their routines - they let the Doctor out for one daily walk amongst the various criminals and convicts - and probed into their digital systems as far as he could do untraceably. 

And finally, after a few weeks of all that nonsense, he had a plan.

The plan went like this.

_ Step 1: Pose as a journalist.  _ No, the Master didn’t like it either, but he put on the stupid hat and brought along a flip notepad and pen as a rudimentary disguise.

_ Step 2: Be really vague.  _ The Master had waffled on and on about some new Spaceflix crime documentary they were filming and how he only needed to talk to Jerry the Weeping Angel for five minutes maximum and then he’d be done. The Judoon receptionist had gotten confused about the word ‘documentary’, which didn’t translate well, and let him in after getting all flustered. Perfect.

_ Step 3: Slip into a staffroom. _ A bit cliché as far as prison break-ins go, but it was just too easy to lose his Judoon escort, de-magnify the protective field around the staffroom with some quick back of the hand quantum maths, and grab a key out of a guard’s badly placed jacket.

Amazing how, after centuries of development, they couldn’t beat a good old-fashioned key. Sure, there were electronic gates and pins and all the rest, but a solid key? You can’t hack it, there’s only one of them, and if it gets lost then you can just change the bloody locks.

_ Step 4: Find the Doctor. _ This was easier said than done. Luckily, the Master had a map. Not so luckily, his sense of direction was totally shit. (This was, he was loath to admit, one of the things that didn’t change with regeneration. He’d never been able to find his way around.) He got turned around and back to front and eventually had to stare at the floor map in front of the elevators, which sort of blended into his clueless journalist facade, so might have been a blessing in disguise.

_ Step 5: LASERCUT!  _ Technically unnecessary, but wonderfully dramatic. The Master used his laser screwdriver to blast a hole big enough for him to step through without messing up his hair in what was, presumably, the Doctor’s cell wall. And then he was in! It was almost too good to be true.

It  _ was  _ too good to be true. 

Because when he straightened up, adjusting his nice purple coat in what he hoped was an alluring gesture, and went to purr  _ hello, my dear Doctor…  _ The Doctor wasn’t there! Not even when he looked underneath the pebbles. No Doctor to be found. 

What?

He had the cell right, he was 99% sure. Maybe 70% sure. Or 51%. No, but there were the scratch marks, timekeeping the days (what a nerd) and the symbols for  _ Theta Sigma _ in High Gallifreyan scrawled into the wall. This was the Doctor’s cell.

“Oh, my dear Master,” said a too-familiar voice from behind him. “Looking for someone?”

He turned around just as the walls disintegrated around him, fading to a gently undulating blue-grey colour. The  _ Matrix? _ How was he here? And who was -

Oh.

Well, now he just felt silly.

“Doctor,” he said. “Were you ever actually imprisoned?”

“Oh, yeah.” She sauntered into view, hands in her coat pockets, looking heart-wrenchingly adorable as well as stomach-turningly pleased with herself. “For years. But I’m a time traveller, or didn’t you know?”

“Oh, piss off,” the Master grumbled. He was distinctly uncomfortable with the Doctor planning ahead of him, as she well knew.

“I left the distress call for you recently, and I simulated the prison cameras with the Matrix. I’ve been playing around with it a bunch. Not bad, eh?”

The Master pouted.

“Come on then. Ask me why I did this.” She had that light in her eyes now, the slightly mad one he’d always wanted so badly to coax into a flame. 

He humoured her.

“Why did you do this?”

“Well, Master,” she said, starting to pace in a circle around him. “When I was imprisoned - actually imprisoned, I mean - I had an awful lot of time to think. And when I was thinking, I thought about you. Just sometimes. Just enough to realise that in all our lives, you’ve done a lot more thinking about me than the other way around. You follow a bit of a pattern, actually. All the killing people and waiting for me to save them. I never took much notice before. But there’s something else you do.”

“What?” He didn’t like it when the Doctor was self-aware, either. 

“You rescue me.” She was in front of him now, her green-brown eyes fixed on his. 

“No, I don’t,” he tried. It was embarrassing, both that he did it so often and that she had only just noticed. 

“Yeah, you do. I thought I should say thanks. So, you know, thanks.”

“Ugh,” the Master mumbled. 

“Decided to turn the tables for once. Make a plan to get you, my way. Did you like it? Pretty convincing, right?”

“You wanted to…  _ get _ me?” It sounded like something he’d say, and he did not appreciate the objectification being reversed. 

“I wanted to notice you. Because it’s always the other way round. And it shouldn’t have to be.”

The Master was really, really glad that this regeneration didn’t show its blushes as easily as his others. It probably showed a little anyway. Fuck.

“And I wanted to tell you that I’m going to decrypt the Matrix files. I think I know how to do it. I’ll let you know when I do, if you want to see, seeing as we’re the only two left and all.”

“Oh.” The Master was so thoroughly one-upped by this point that he didn’t even have the energy left to be embarrassed about it. “Good luck, then.”

The Doctor smiled. She leaned forwards and kissed his cheek, and before he could register anything about it, she was gone. Disappeared into the Matrix.

He put a hand on his cheek, over the spot where he could still feel her lips.

The Master was, as a rule, fond of attention. And the Doctor’s attention was the very best. He let himself smile. It had only taken thirteen regenerations for her to catch on. Maybe there was hope for both of them after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and the lovely comments along the way! I had so much fun writing this one, it's really very self-indulgent, so I hope you also feel indulged. Stay safe 💖

**Author's Note:**

> [come yell at my tumblr](https://starknight-dreams.tumblr.com/)


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